A while back we ran a post on a guy in the U.S. who was investigated by his utility company for dramatically reducing his power bill (by changing bulbs and applying several other conservation techniques). The power company assumed he must have tampered with his meter. Understandable, I guess, and a great encouragement for us to do the same. But, what would happen if the power company went further, and sued him for reducing his energy consumption? You’d object, obviously.
Yesterday the Examiner ran a story on Eddie House, a guy that, through concern over the environment, managed to reduce his household waste to next to nothing through recycling, giving scraps to his dog, etc. Where it gets screwy is that the local refuse collection service has now sued Mr. House for no longer requiring their services.
The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week… — Examiner
Eddie is a little taken aback, as it seem to him he’s being forced to produce trash.
“I don’t understand a city ordinance that requires you to fill up a can. That’s downright foolishness,” he said. — Examiner
Still, neighbours accuse him of burning his trash, which, if true, would diminish his trash-activism superhero status a little (alternative methods, like composting and/or vermiculture, where possible, would be far better). Eddie denies this charge though, stating he was only burning firewood.
House acknowledges that the fire department was called to his house several times, but says that each time he was simply burning firewood. — Examiner
Talk about being a captive customer.
Hat Tip: Shea, from Snarf’d, for tipping me to the story.
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January 30th, 2008
Proof that people in power are crazy
Wish he’d publish on the internet how he did all of it 
January 30th, 2008
I don’t think it’s outside the realm of reason. My girlfriend and I produce a 2/3 to a full grocery bag of garbage a week. And that’s because we don’t have a compost bin yet.
January 30th, 2008
Sounds like they’re misreading the statute, likely phrased along the lines of “residents shall contract with Allied […]”, clearly intended as a “if you want garbage removed, you have to use these guys”.
That said - why would a city have an ordinance legislating a sweetheart deal? Odd.
January 30th, 2008
Similar situations happen in our neighborhood every now and then, we have a bunch of fat slob people move in next door and as a house warming gift we send them their own composting kit and recycle bins, and a few energy star rated bulbs (fellowship effort of course), and they just throw the stuff away saying that we are forcing them to do something they don’t “do”, people are really closed minded when they want to be right.
January 30th, 2008
I wonder if the fire department was called to his house in a spirit of harassment by his neighbors.
January 30th, 2008
It would work the same way in my town. They don’t care if the guy produces trash, they just want him to pay a regular trash bill. You can deal with your trash any way you want, but the trash company gives the city a decent rate in return for being guaranteed the right to bill every household in town.
January 31st, 2008
I bet that looks good on his criminal record… charged with failure to fill up landfill.
January 31st, 2008
Sounds par for the course; most trash companies are “in bed” with the municipal government and provide kick backs in exchange for exclusive and encompassing contracts. They would take almost any measure to ensure their continued profits.
In some areas one might expect to have one’s legs broken or wife raped if he went up against them.
January 31st, 2008
We had a similar situation with a woman here in Portland, Oregon a few years ago. They did not sue her, just told her she had to pay the minimum garbage bill anyways.
January 31st, 2008
This is just like a story I wrote about the City of Palm Bay in Florida. This HAS to be a flaw in legal system.
Anyway, if you’re interested: http://www.landlord-success.com/property-management/monopolistic-service-providers
January 31st, 2008
It isn’t a criminal matter, it is civil, so it won’t show up on his record.
January 31st, 2008
we have a very sketchy garbage thing going on in our town, ct, although we get reduced prices for reduced garbage. still, though, i wouldn’t want to tell our company that we no longer needed their services unless i was moving. very far away.
January 31st, 2008
The government used to exist to serve the tax-paying citizens. Now, citizens exist to serve the government.
But, according to most people, who cares as long as the Super Bowl or Oprah comes on television?
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2338448
Jasper
January 31st, 2008
We have a similar problem in South Australia. We are under water restrictions that only allow you to water your garden once a week (average yearly rainfall is only 450mm) So I want to install an on site black water treatment system which will output all household water under my garden beds and disconnect from the sewer. But even if disconnected I have to pay the sewer fees for the service being made available to me by passing my home.
January 31st, 2008
They aren’t misreading the statute. It is designed to require trash removal at least once a week. Otherwise people might accumulate trash for longer periods of time, which would smell, potentially spread disease, and would be unpleasant for neighbors. They might also just have one person in the neighborhood have a trash removal contract and all use that neighbor’s trash cans, which could threaten the financial viability of disposal so that no one could get their trash removed. In any event, this sort of residential control by local government is commonplace and quite legal. While this is not exactly the sort of case it was intended to apply to, the statute is unambiguous and requires all residents to have a contract with the disposal company.
January 31st, 2008
You watch too much Sopranos…
January 31st, 2008
I realize that the city sounds stupid, but we recently went to this type of system in Lancaster PA. Prior to that, there were many trash haulers and no system to keep track of household trash pickup.
An unfortunate side effect of not having oversight and charging everyone is that a large number of low-income households were illegally dumping so that they didn’t have to pay a bill. A household that produces no trash is a true rarity and is vastly outnumbered by the people who would abuse the system if not overseen.
January 31st, 2008
@Jonolan,
This is why Tony Soprano called his family business “Waste Management.”
January 31st, 2008
Stupid “trash collection” people. When was the last time you were allowed to sue somebody because they refused to buy a service or product they didn’t need?
January 31st, 2008
I live a few miles away from Mr. House, and our rules are the same. Billing comes from the local water dept and includes garbage pickup. We MUST have a garbage pickup (or at least pay for it) every week. For the majority of the town it prob is an ok idea, I’ll bet there aren’t more than a handful of people in our area that don’t have any garbage and our city has 75,000 people. I suppose it keeps people from filling up any public debris boxes or dumping in a creek somewhere.
January 31st, 2008
Oh brilliant. Make a guy pay for a service he’s not going to use.
January 31st, 2008
Similar situations happen in our neighborhood every now and then, we have a bunch of devil worship people move in next door and as a house warming gift we send them their own bible and cross, and a chick tracts (fellowship effort of course), and they just throw the stuff away saying that we are forcing them to do something they don’t “do”, people are really closed minded when they want to be right.
January 31st, 2008
Another triumph of the free market over excessive regulation of business. Just think what a mess we’d have on our hands if there were a state law preventing such practices. Oh, the humanity.
January 31st, 2008
As the poster above alluded to, it’s a municipal service that’s been privatized. There’s an expectation that everybody chips in to keep it going though economy of scale. If you were to somehow completely fireproof your home, should you be excused from paying the portion of your property taxes that pays for the fire department? Should a rich person not have to pay for police just because they pay for their own private security service?
January 31st, 2008
@martin: The city contracting with a specific company, what you call a “sweetheart deal” is pretty standard. Actually, it’s one of the common examples in basic economics classes. Having multiple trash companies operating on the same street is inefficient, and has high externalities. Do you want four different trash trucks going down your street in the morning? (Usually this has nothing to do with companies being “in bed” with the governments, as jonolan is implying.)
That said, the problem being faced here is one of public goods. Trash collection doesn’t meet all the criteria to be a perfect public good, but it is a situation in which one person opting out theoretically raises the costs for everyone else.
Still, the case is absurd. Unless he really has been burning trash, he should be allowed to not participate if he likes, because, as I said, it isn’t a pure public good.
January 31st, 2008
Lincoln County, GA. The city had recyling bins that were faithfully filled by citizens of Lincolnton. Little did they know that the county didn’t really have a recycling facility and their recyclables were getting thrown in the city dump.
They finally built a recycling center approx. last year.
Also, Lincoln County, GA. The county had a contract with a waste disposal company. They decided to change it from the good company that faithfully picked up the garbage on time to the company they had previous to that. They also decided that homeowners were required to get the service, period. Getting an exemption, or a break because they were elderly or infirm was next to impossible to aquire. They required a years full advance payment to be added to their property tax. The good company was barred by the county from even private contracts. The bad company took over and it has sucked since.
I saw did and were because I moved in July, so I cannot definetively say that it is still the same, but it was then, and my family says it is now. Lincoln County, GA is known as the most corrupt county in the CSRA. Everyone except for the Sheriff is corrupt, and that’s because a grassroots campaign finally succeeded in deposing him.
Stay away from Lincoln County!!!
January 31st, 2008
Wow. This really sucks. You should be able to decide what YOU do with YOUR TRASH!! Not someone else.
January 31st, 2008
This is ridiculous: The cost for waste collection is spread equally among the residents of the municipality. Each citizen shares an equal responsibility for the cost, regardless of the amount of waste he generates or whether or not he supports the program (on whatever grounds). The tax is distributed among all citizens: No individual is allowed to opt out. The will of the majority is supreme. This is how we fund virtually every liberty-sapping government program, whether it is public education, welfare, or social security. I think the argument includes something about “the good of society”. Suck it up, you dumb liberals–you built this mess.
January 31st, 2008
About 15 years ago a gentleman in Virgina, MN had to sue the municipality to successfully stop being charged for refuse pickup. Through recycling and judicious purchases (avoiding packaging, buying groceries in bulk from a local food cooperative, etc.)he had reduced his garbage production to zero. He had to prove to the authorities that it was possible.
January 31st, 2008
Have a funny feeling he’s probably burning his garbage. Who burns firewood outside and wood doesn’t smell funny.
If they let him cancel, then more people wood and simply haul their trash to any dumpster they could find.
February 1st, 2008
February 1st, 2008
Betcha he has a garbage disposal.
February 1st, 2008
How much stock in the garbage company do the local politicians have???
February 1st, 2008
“Another triumph of the free market over excessive regulation of business.”
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not. In fact, this is a case where the government regulation is specifically designed to make competition impossible. The government has created a monopoly by shutting out everyone but Allied, and then forced everyone to use that service, whether they need it or not.
A free market would allow consumers to:
1) Decide whether or not they need a service, and if they decide they need it,
2) Who to get the service from.
But both of these decisions have been been made by the local government. There’s nothing “free market” about this situation. In fact, it’s pretty much diametrically opposed to a free market.
February 1st, 2008
@Sirus20×6,
It’s not so much stocks as actual kick-backs and graft.
February 1st, 2008
Bryan,
All that is well and good, if only what you were stating was true.
This is a prime example of free market. The trash company does not get a sweet deal. The City or municipality Contracts with them because they were the low bidder on the contract for a certain length of time. I would suspect that there were several companies that were part of the bidding process. Now the next time the contract comes up a different contractor can bid lower and the first company is out on his ear.
The water bill and garbage is a tax that is collected every month. They do not say you have to use the trash collection, but so the city does not have to be responsible for issues like a trash heaps, disease and the like, they put in the municipal code that all homeowners are required to pay for garbage pick up through the contracted company.
School taxes are the same way, you pay for them, whether you have children or not, for the better good of the community.
February 1st, 2008
“This is a prime example of free market. The trash company does not get a sweet deal. The City or municipality Contracts with them because they were the low bidder on the contract for a certain length of time”
Just because a town chooses the lowest bidder for a project doesn’t mean that free market principles are being followed. The fact that the city mandates one, and only one, provider of trash service, makes this not a case of a free market, regardless of how they choose that provider.
An example of a free market, for trash services, is my town (New Hartford, NY). We have dump. It’s up to me to get my trash there. I can bring it myself, or I can hire one of several private companies to collect it for a monthly fee. The town mandates neither which service I hire, or if I even hire a service at all.
For the record, I don’t hire a service, since my wife and I don’t generate nearly enough non-recyclable* waste to justify the expense of having to hire trash collectors.
February 1st, 2008
Opps. Some of my previous comment got chopped…
You also brought up the subjects of school and water, as examples of other things that work the same way trash removal works in some towns (like Eddie House’s). That has me a bit confused. You’re saying that the thrash removal is following the principles of free market economics, yet you compare it to public schools and city water services; two things that are also government administered, rather than free market driven.
February 2nd, 2008
We used to have a choice of which trash service we use in Estonia. Recently, they changed the law, so that every household must use a trash service. Since my father, who manages such stuff, was in the US for a couple of months, they could not negotiate with him and they assigned him a trash service provider. Now they come, look at the empty garbage bins (my father doesn’t generate a whole lot of garbage, recycles a lot of it, and isn’t even at home most of the time). He refused to pay for such service and of course, we are getting sued. By the way, we already had a trash service provider who would come once in a couple of months.
February 2nd, 2008
nothing ceases to amaze me
February 19th, 2008
Missing the point, if the guy was so interested in the environment, why would you burn wood so much/often????